Hochdorf, Lucerne

Hochdorf is a municipality of about 9,900 inhabitants in the district of Hochdorf in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland, located in the upper Seetal valley. It is first mentioned in 924 as Hodorf. The municipality consists of the village of Hochdorf and the hamlets of Baldegg, Huwyl, Urswil and part of Ligschwil, and it covers about 9.6 square kilometres, of which 61.9 percent is farmland, 10.5 percent forest and 26.2 percent settled, with transportation infrastructure taking about 5 percent of the total area and industrial buildings about 4 percent. In 2007 the population was 8,246, of whom 18.5 percent were foreign nationals; it had grown by about 10 percent over the previous ten years, and German was spoken by most residents, with Italian and Albanian the next most common languages.